AUGUST 23, 1999:
My name is Meredith and I'll be your waitress today. God help us all. What
I'll actually be today is sweaty and bewildered, in my little green hat with the
unidentifiable smear on the brim. I'll be praying that all the pens didn't roll away
the last time my apron fell off, leaving me unable to write down your order. And
I'll be hoping against hope that you don't ask for anything unconventional, like
toast.

No, toast isn't on the menu, but it seems like a reasonable enough request --
to a customer. I know, because as a restaurant reviewer and avid eater-outer,
I'm proficient at being a customer. I'm good at it.

But anyone who's going to be a critic of anything should know all aspects of what
they're talking about. Sure, I cook a lot, read a lot, explore the world through
food. I certainly eat enough. But it's been a while since I worked in a restaurant.

This summer the tables have turned, so to speak. I'm living on Mount Desert Island,
Maine -- a beautiful, secluded, remote place ... until the tourist stampede of
July and August. Because freelance writing is such a solitary task, and because I
wanted to learn more about the restaurant business, I've picked up two shifts a week
at a restaurant in the middle of Acadia National Park -- waiting tables at the
Jordan Pond House Restaurant.

The restaurant, which is more than 100 years old, sits sandwiched among five lovely
mountains on the shore of Jordan Pond, a glittering little lake reputed to be the
cleanest in Maine. I'd eaten at the Pond House a number of times, and it's very special.
Sit on a screened-in porch or overlooking the pond on the "Tea Lawn." Highlights
on the menu include fresh-squeezed lemonade complete with a tiny pitcher of sugar-water
so you can sweeten it yourself, or a bowl of lobster stew -- a brilliantly simple
concoction of sautéed lobster, cream, sherry, and paprika in a rich stock. Some
people come in every summer for the homemade ice cream or blueberry crisp made from
tiny wild berries. But the Pond House is best known for afternoon tea. Served in
ancient green pots that are inevitably chipped, adding old-world charm, the tea itself
is secondary to the addictive popovers that are served alongside, straight from the
oven. A server brings out a basket of fluffy, steam-filled rolls that are like Yorkshire
pudding from a muffin tin, complete with whipped butter and strawberry jam. To a
customer, the whole experience is a little bit glamorous in a rustic, traditional
way.

The servers themselves are a wholesome, smiley, corn-fed bunch, mostly bright-eyed
college kids or recent grads having an adventure. People all over the world compete
for summer jobs in national parks, and the ones who make the cut are typically excellent
at what they do.

illustration by Jason Stout

Then there's me. Wholesome, smiley, corn-fed, yes. But my eyes aren't as bright
when I'm squinting into the sun, blinking sweat out of them. And did I mention that
I can't carry a tray to save my life? What I believed to be my last stint with waitressing
ended abruptly six years ago, after some second-degree burns. It should be noted
that the staff of an emergency room is far calmer than the staff at a restaurant.

I thought it would be different this time, that such a large and lovely restaurant
would be a better experience. With 172 tables in the restaurant, I only have to pay
attention to four of them. How hard could that be?

I start off by bringing people water and asking if they want something else to
drink. If a customer has an intricate request -- like she wants an extra-dry
cappuccino -- I continue to smile and act normal. When she explains to her table-mates
that you can't get a good cappuccino on this island, I refrain from pointing out
the inanity of demanding an American bastardization of an Italian drink in a restaurant
designed for gentle pilgrimish grandparents and families on camping vacations, not
snotty New York fruitloops, and that she's lucky we're not making her wear a tri-cornered
hat.

Most customers are actually very polite, gracious people. A sign on my table alerts
them to the fact that I'm from Texas, so they want to talk about that. I want to
talk about it, too. Can I pull up a chair? I'm much more interested in trading life
stories than I am in hearing about what they want to eat.

Because inevitably they want something really heavy that sloshes, like 10 bowls
of chowder, or something light yet lopsided, which can also be a problem. Ranch instead
of feta. Water with lemons, water with no lemons. Some people want chocolate milk,
which we definitely don't have. Then there is the toast contingent. Requests
like this set me back about 10 minutes, because I have to walk around and strategize,
then find someone in a position of authority to badger. Finally, someone in the kitchen
runs past, shouting, "We don't make toast." Then I'm safe, because once
I know the no-toast policy I don't need to approach the cooks, which isn't allowed
anyhow. People who are cooking lunch for 400 simply don't have time for one of your
customers to be a sunburned German toddler with a craving. Yeah, me neither.

I don't even have time to feed the patrons who obediently restrict themselves
to ordering from the menu; in a restaurant this size, every trip to the kitchen is
at least 50 paces to and 50 paces fro, with time factored in to maneuver around the
other 20 servers who also need to be in the same small space. In short, a major time
commitment. "I'm sorry that your Coke refill took 45 minutes, sir, but there
was a line, then I realized that I've had a chicken sandwich sitting under a heat
lamp for long enough that the cook made me another one real quick, during which time
I ladled out some lady's soup and realized that her husband had wanted an ice cream,
which promptly melted in the 140-degree kitchen so it had to be re-scooped..."

In a bad situation, there are two things you can do: lie, or surrender. It is
appropriate to lie, for instance, to a condescending curmudgeon who describes to
you exactly the way he wants his popover to look. The charming thing about popovers
is that every one looks different, more different than every snowflake, even. They
puff and struggle out of their tins while they fill up with steam, then they wilt
a little, and you can't dictate which way they should wilt. So when you fall
behind, smile and lie through your teeth that you were waiting for the perfect popover
to come out of the oven. He'll understand.

Surrendering to the customers is in order when you really screw up. Like if you
have a table of six but something happens where you only manage to bring three of
them lunch. Those were some huffy people -- until I waved the white flag. When
I pleaded total incompetence, they couldn't get enough of me, started calling me
sweetheart all the time. One woman at the table congratulated me on being able to
own up to a mistake and told me that as a nurse, one time she forgot about one of
the patients. I think it validated her to be forgotten about.

If you can't be good at what you do, there are ways to use ineptitude to your
advantage. I believe I have a special knack for making trays look more unwieldy than
they are, and for making the restaurant seem busier than it actually is. I've started
to confess this to people who coo and cluck over how hard I seem to be working. They
think I'm just being brave, but the other servers seem to make it look so effortless.
Which brings me to my point:

Waiting tables isn't effortless, and it isn't even well-compensated. Anyone who
has worked in a restaurant is a terrible pain to go out to eat with, because they
always seem to insist on leaving a 40% tip. My silent theory has always been that
if off-duty servers eating out didn't leave such huge tips, they wouldn't show up
the rest of us in the 15-20% crowd, and they wouldn't be so poor. In other words,
if they didn't spend so much cash tipping others, they wouldn't need such big tips
themselves. Now I'm in the big tip club, too, but I've given up on hoping for good
tips for myself. With three more weeks to go, I'm far more interested in trying to
survive than in raking in the bucks. While other servers skillfully rush people in
and out, I just say, Sit down, relax, and enjoy the view. You're gonna be here
for a while.